This invention relates generally to a combined mobile telephone and personal digital assistant (PDA) and more particularly to a telephone including a slidable telephone keypad which exposes part of the PDA display screen during telephone operation, and which is foldable open to expose the complete PDA display for operation of the PDA.
Many individuals carry individual pagers, mobile telephones and PDAs. The name of a contact might be listed in a PDA as well as stored in the mobile phone. Such duplication naturally requires entry of the information multiple times, resulting in an information overlap among these devices. Furthermore, carrying numerous devices is cumbersome and wasteful.
One possible solution to the problem of entering data multiple times is communication ports between the mobile phone and the PDA. Such ports include infra-red and data cable links, although these additions will raise the cost and not solve the problem of having too many devices.
There have been various attempts to combine one or more of the devices into a single unit which is carried by the user. There is a need for a device which combines at least a mobile telephone and a PDA in a compact, easy-to-use manner, and which can make use of the PDA display both during operation of the device as a mobile telephone and as a PDA.
It is a general object of the present invention to provide a compact, attractive, easy-to-use combined mobile telephone and PDA.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a combined mobile telephone and PDA in which the PDA display is used both during telephone operation and also in the PDA operation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device containing a personal digital assistant and a mobile telephone in which there is a touch sensitive display screen protected by a cover. Along with the cover is a means for attaching the cover to an end of the device and hingably mounting the cover to the device in order to allow rotation away from the display screen. The cover has two parallel spaced rails and a support member including operating electronics, a keypad slidably mounted on the cover between the two parallel spaced rails, facing away from the display screen, and electrically linked to the electronics in the support member. The keypad slides to expose a portion of the display screen before encountering a stop.